


Cold

by saracenknows



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 12:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4522857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saracenknows/pseuds/saracenknows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack had been told more than once that he was cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

Jack had been told more than once that he was cold. 

In recent years it was Gwen, Gwen with her huge heart and soft eyes, who asked him if he even cared about the people they were trying to save. And he would reply that of course he did, but they had a job to do and they couldn't let caring get in the way of that. 

The others knew this. Even Gwen knew it really, but she couldn't just turn off that compassion.

Sometimes Jack thought that she was right, that maybe he did care too little. Maybe he could turn off that human compassion.

He thought this most of all when it was Owen who called him out, who looked at Jack like maybe he wasn't quite human, who stared down at a body with misty eyes while Jack formed an action plan. 

Because Owen was a doctor. He was trained not to care too much, not to let compassion get in the way of doing his job. 

So when Owen asked Jack if he cared, it hit him harder than soft-hearted Gwen, than Ianto, than Tosh. 

Maybe, he thought, he did care too little. 

So, for the first time in years, he let himself care. 

And it hurt. 

Staring down at a dead body he no longer saw evidence, he saw someone who had died too young, he saw a parent who had lost their child or a child who had lost their parents. He saw the family and friends and future and past and it hurt.

But he had forgotten that caring brought good, too. 

And there was good in Gwen's smile and Tosh's laugh, in Owen's jokes and Ianto's touch, and he thought that maybe it was worth caring after all.

But as he watched Owen die and die again and reached Tosh too late to save her and held Ianto in his arms as he died and ended Stephen's life to fix a mistake he had made years ago, Jack remembered why he had sworn not to care.


End file.
